It started from a “storm” in the WhatsApp group of doctors of the general health fund, who were amazed to see an official greeting from the fund to the incoming health minister and convicted felon Aryeh Deri, in which Atoui Hamudi – the beloved baby who is the trademark of the health fund – is wearing a hat instead of bald-with-two-hairs that characterizes him. Is the General Health Insurance Fund repenting or did someone just get too enthusiastic with the licks for the minister?
as per David Wertheim’s publication in Vala Barangay, the doctors were outraged at the use of an image designed for the religious sector in which the baby wears a forehead cap, and not the familiar secular image that appears in all the Kopa publications, mainly against the background of the divisive and anti-secular statements of the coalition members. The illustrator Daniela London, who is the mother of “Hamudi” and the owner of the section in which he appeared and was published even before it was purchased by the General Health Fund, reacted to the publications with regret and attacked the fund: “If it was up to me, Hamudi would have accepted the new health minister with both hands outstretched Go ahead with orange prison uniforms on them,” she wrote in a post published on social networks.
“The character is no longer mine. It hasn’t been for a long time,” added London honestly, “but still I felt like mentioning that the original Hamudi was a mischievous, outspoken, strictly secular boy and there is no way in the world that a convicted felon would have been able to put a hat on his head.” Commentators on the right tried to ridicule London’s claims and show that the figure with her forehead bandaged had been used even before, but the claim is not about the mere existence of a version of Hamudi intended for the religious sector who cannot bear the thought of an illustrated baby without a cap, but about its use in the context of a blessing A convicted felon returned to the scene of the crime.
At the Klalit Health Insurance Fund, they tried to claim that the face-covered figure is in all the branches of the health insurance fund, but a quick check showed that the reality does not line up well with this argument.
Either way, it seems that the near future holds many more storms of this kind, sensitivity is going to be high and emotions are going to be turbulent. Danielle London sold the copyright to the character she created, but the moral right to mention what’s going on here can’t be bought.